For these tutorials, we’ll assume a byte is 8 bits. Some older or non-standard machines may have bytes of a different size (from 1 to 48 bits) - however, we generally need not worry about these, as the modern de-facto standard is that a byte is 8 bits. The modern standard is that a byte is comprised of 8 sequential bits. A byte is a group of bits that are operated on as a unit. Instead, each memory address holds 1 byte of data. This is because the number of memory addresses are limited, and the need to access data bit-by-bit is rare. Perhaps surprisingly, in modern computer architectures, each bit does not get its own unique memory address. Similar to how a street address can be used to find a given house on a street, the memory address allows us to find and access the contents of memory at a particular location. Memory is organized into sequential units called memory addresses (or addresses for short). If you were to look at a random segment of memory, all you would see is …011010100101010… or some combination thereof. You can think of a bit as being like a traditional light switch - either the light is off (0), or it is on (1). The smallest unit of memory is a binary digit (also called a bit), which can hold a value of 0 or 1. When a variable is defined, a piece of that memory is set aside for that variable. To recap briefly, computers have random access memory (RAM) that is available for programs to use. In lesson 1.3 - Introduction to objects and variables, we talked about the fact that variables are names for a piece of memory that can be used to store information.
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